DADE CITY, Fla. - The Xavier University men's golf team took third place at the 2014 Mid-American Match Play Championship on Tuesday, Feb. 11, at Lake Jovita South Course in Florida. The Musketeers beat third-seeded Miami (OH) University and fell to second-seeded and the eventual champion Ball State on Monday (Feb.10), before taking down fourth-seeded Eastern Kentucky by a score of 4-2 on day two on the par 72, 7,153 yard Lake Jovita Golf Course.

The Musketeers defeated No. 3 Miami, 4.5-1.5, in the opening round before falling to the No. 2 Cardinals after James Blackwell and Albert Jennings both won their final hole of play to earn BSU a tie with the Blue and White and advanced to the finals by virtue of the match-play tiebreaker.

All six Musketeers contributed points in the two matches on Monday (Feb. 10), with junior Korey Ward (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) and freshman Matt Wetterich (Cincinnati, Ohio/LaSalle HS) each coming away with 2-0 records on day one.

In the final round round, Ward won his match, 1 up, over EKU's Garrett Hinton, while seniorYuki Kato (Las Vegas, Nev./Faith Lutheran) closed out Stuart Witt, 4 up to give XU an early 2-0 lead.

Juniors John Burger (Cincinnati, Ohio/LaSalle) and Tanapol Vattanapisit (Rayong, Thailand/The Pendleton School) dropped their matches as EKU evened the contest at 2-2 with a pair of matches to go.

Sophomore Matt Gerard (Cleveland, Ohio/St. Ignatius) and Wetterich wrapped up third place for the Musketeers, picking up a pair of 3 up victories over Travis Rose and Danial Deluca, respectively.

Schools competed in teams of six with the seeds determined by their current GolfStat rankings. Each of the six matches was worth one point to the winner. If the competitors end up all-square after 18 holes, each school received ½ point. The school with the most points after the six matches won.

Unlike stroke play, in which the unit of scoring is the total number of strokes taken over one or more rounds of golf, match play scoring consists of individual holes won, halved or lost. On each hole, the most that can be gained is one point. Golfers play as normal, counting the strokes taken on a given hole. The golfer with the lowest score on a given hole receives one point. If the golfers tie, then the hole is halved. Also, once a player is "up" more holes than there are holes remaining to play the match is over.

The Musketeers return to tournament play Sunday, March 16, when they begin action at the two-day Talis Park Collegiate Golf Challenge hosted by Ball State at the Talis Park Golf Club in Naples, Fla.

Tiebreaker SystemTeam Matches Tied: Team matches that are tied will be decided by using the following procedure:

- If a team match is tied after the completion of the six singles matches, the tie will be broken by comparing the margin of victory of each individual match won for their team.

- If a team tie still exists, the team winner will be determined by comparing the number of holes remaining in each match won.

- If a team tie still exists, the team winner will be determined by comparing the halved match or matches. These results will be determined by a "scorecard playoff" (scores will be compared by the #1 handicap hole) provided all tied matches have played that hole. Handicap holes will be used until the tie is broken with total scores.